Jolie Gabor

Family

Jolie Gabor was born Janka Tilleman on September 30, 1896, in Budapest, Austria-Hungary. Her parents were Jona Hersch Tilleman and Chawe Feige Tilleman (née Reinharz, Reinharcz, or Reinhartz), both of whom were born of Jewish ancestry in Galicia, then part of the Austrian Empire, near present-day Poland and Ukraine. The Tillemans were jewelers who owned a jewelry shop known as "The Diamond House". The couple changed their forenames to Josef and Franceska. The Tilleman family's Jewish descent was also cited by a surgeon, Dr. Lazslo Tauber, also Jewish, and a family friend and neighbor of the Gabors in Budapest. Following the death of Josef Tilleman, his widow, Franceska, married a medical doctor and general physician, Dr. Miksa Kende.

Addressing her birthname, usually reserved for Hungarian males, Gabor stated, "My parents were so eager to have a son they named me Jancsi, which translated comes out Little John or Johnny". Her birth certificate, however, indicates her birth name was "Janka". The third of five surviving children, Gabor's siblings consisted of three sisters and one brother: Dora, Eugénia, Rozália, and Sebestyén (or Sebastian). Another sister died in infancy. While there is little information available on Jolie's sisters,this extract indicates they survived the war. Her sister, Rozália (Mrs. Emanuel Reiss), emigrated to Australia with her husband in 1956, where she died in 1974.

Jolie Gabor was the aunt of Annette Tilleman (b. 1931), daughter of Jolie's brother Sebastian Tilleman and wife of Hungarian-American U.S. Representative Tom Lantos. Sebastian and his mother, Franceska, were killed during a bombing raid on Budapest during World War II. The family of Gabor's mother, the Reinherzes, had established jewelry shops in Vienna; her mother's uncle helped the Tillemans open their jewelry business, "The Diamond House", located at 54 54 Rákóczi utca in Budapest.

Although born in 1896, Gabor claimed to have been born in 1900, once jokingly stating that she had lied so much about her age she did not remember her actual birth date. Her obituary in The New York Times gave a birth year of 1900. On a ship's passenger manifest dated December 30, 1945, Gabor gave her age as 45 years and two months, which would make her year of birth 1900. Her birth certificate, however, confirms her birth year to be 1896. Author Dominick Dunne stated, in 1995, that Gabor was believed to be 109, which would mean a birth year of approximately 1886. The 1987 edition of Biographical Dictionary, however, cites Jolie Gabor's complete birthdate to be September 29, 1896, as does the 1959 International Celebrity Register.

Career

In the 1930s, Jolie opened Crystello, a shop selling crystal and porcelain in Budapest, as well as Jolie's, a handmade-costume-jewelry shop at 4 Kígyó utca in Budapest; she also established another branch of her eponymous shop in Győr. Eventually there were five such shops in the Budapest area. The firm's jewels also incorporated semiprecious stones and were admired for their old-fashioned settings and workmanship. "Just like Bulgari is known in Rome, that's how well-known I was in Budapest", Jolie once stated. "Jolie's did so well that at holiday time they were standing outside in line waiting until somebody goes out from the inside." The rise of Nazism in Germany forced her to curtail her retail business, Gabor recalled, "Everybody told, 'Jolie is crazy to go now to Berlin and Leipzig for jewelry.' I never went again."

She was forced to close the stores when Hungary was occupied by the Germans, at which time she and other family members fled to Portugal. They were assisted by Carlos Sampaio Garrido, Portuguese ambassador to Hungary — Gabor's daughter Magda reportedly was either his aide or his mistress — who provided safe passage to many Hungarian Jews in 1944. An article in Vanity Fair stated in 2001 that it was under Sampaio's guidance that the family "... had been spirited out of the country ..." Her brother, Sebestyén (or Sebastian), also a jeweler, spent part of the war in labor camps, beginning in 1942, until he and their mother, Franceska, were killed in a Budapest bombing raid during World War II.

Gabor arrived in the United States on December 30, 1945. She opened a successful costume jewelry business (called simply Jolie Gabor) in New York City in 1946, with $7,200 borrowed from her daughters. It later moved to 699 Madison Avenue. Gabor also established a branch of the firm in Palm Springs, California. Among the company's designers were Elsa Beck and Stephen Kelen d'Oxylion, as well as her own daughter, Magda.

One of the saleswomen was Evangelia Callas, mother of future opera diva Maria Callas. In 1953 the store introduced ornamental metal fingernails studded with rhinestones. In 1975, almost 80 years old, Jolie signed with the Keene Lecture Bureau as an inspirational speaker. She toured the country speaking about the relationship between beauty and female empowerment.

Publications

Gabor lent her name to two books:

Television appearances

In 1957, Gabor appeared as a mystery guest on the show What's My Line? In 1950, Gabor made a cameo as a jeweler in Black Jack. In 1955, Gabor appeared in The Colgate Comedy Hour. In 1960, Gabor appeared in The Mike Wallace Interview.

Marriages

She was married three times:

Death

Jolie Gabor was preceded in death by her youngest daughter, Eva, although she apparently was never told of Eva's death. She died less than two years later, in Palm Springs, California on April 1, 1997, at age 100. Two months after Jolie's death, her eldest daughter, Magda, died. Zsa Zsa died on December 18, 2016, aged 99. Jolie had one grandchild, Francesca Hilton (Zsa Zsa's daughter), who died in 2015. Zsa Zsa was reportedly never told about Hilton's death.

Jolie Gabor de Szigethy is buried in Desert Memorial Park, Cathedral City, California.